In many situations, a scene or object is captured by multiple cameras, each of which captures a scene or object from a different angle or perspective. For example, at a live concert or at an athletic event, multiple cameras, scattered throughout the stadium, each at a different location, capture the action on the stage or playing field from different points of view.
A common practice in situations where a single clip has to be generated from multiple points of views of the same event is to hire an editor or technician in a control room to select the best view at each instant, in real or differed time. The equipment used by the editor or technician is costly and is used in this context solely to create a file that represents the cuts he/she defines. That file will then be used to feed an editing application that will generate the final clip from those cuts definitions.
Streaming video over the Internet requires a substantial amount of bandwidth. Transmitting multiple streams of images (e.g. images from multiple separate cameras) requires an exceptionally large amount of bandwidth. This large amount of bandwidth needed, added to the fact that every stream is broadcasted independently, will create synchronisation problems when several streams have to be coordinated all together.
It is know from US patent publication 2002/0049979 (White et al.) to collect multiple streams of video and generate low resolution thumbnail images to tell a user what image streams are available. A focus stream can then be selected and streamed to the user station for display.